


As a Chemical Reaction, Fire Can't Have a Liquid State

by TakeninStride



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Timeline, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Refind your family, Time Travel Fix-It, Widojest week 2019, fairy tale prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 19:18:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19774723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TakeninStride/pseuds/TakeninStride
Summary: Caleb alters the timeline.





	As a Chemical Reaction, Fire Can't Have a Liquid State

He can only make one choice. Go back to one place in his history and follow the other path. 

It’s what he’s been working towards for the last twenty years. 

He takes a breath, and it’s over. 

* * *

_What did I do?_ rattles in his head like a hornet swarm, a thousand hot voices that threaten to escape through his eyes. 

_They deserved it..._. It’s his own thought, so why doesn’t it sound right? _They were weak, two against one, and now look what’s left of them._

He was trying not to. 

But there’s blood on his hands. Their blood. It’s everywhere, really, it’s terrible, and the _smell_ \-- 

He’s running, but where to? It’s hard to tell; the rolling hills in the center of the Empire are blanketed in their heavy October mists. He only knows he’s no longer on the rural dirt road because of the frosty crunches that give way under his feet as he tries not to slip. 

He presses a knuckle to his temple, willing his awful headache to dissipate, willing the loud thrumming between his ears to silence. And just like that, the perpetual tinnitus is gone, like he’d never had it in the first place. The void of silence stretches out around him, and he almost wants it back. Wants something, anything, to fill the aching loneliness that has swallowed him whole. 

What was he going to do? He needed to get away, away from it all, but where in the world could he go where _they_ wouldn’t follow? Where _he_ couldn’t find him? 

_Remember, one step at a time Ermendrud. Just like dancing, only this time you’ve got one shot to get it right._ It’s still not his voice. Too raspy, too alto, too Astrid. _Clean yourself up before someone notices you. Work it out from there._

She’s got a point. She always did. 

He pushes into a field, frozen over before the harvest, the tall, cold leaves scratching at his clothes. He walks through for some time, vision blurring in and out. He fights back at the guilt, and the doubt, and the fear but his failure burns hot down his cheeks anyway. 

After an hour-- two-- four-- he’s starting to slow when he hears a sound. Hollow, and echoing, somewhere off to the right. Sounded almost like a giggle and it gives him pause. 

_Stay alert,_ a deep voice whispers across his mind. He doesn’t need Wulf’s cautious reminder-- he thinks he’ll be on edge for the rest of his probably short life. 

He continues towards the noise anyway. His magic game is weak now, but his legs are worse. He won’t make it far from his pursuer, can only hope their guard is down if they’re willing to telegraph so plainly. 

He creeps closer until suddenly he’s stepping out of the fog entirely and into a perfectly sunny patch clearing. An old, run down well sits suspiciously in the center. Two blackbirds chirp at each other from the peak of the little roof. The birds notice him. In a fluster of feathers they fly up, clear the spinned-sugar walls, and are gone from sight. Something falls into the well water with a heavy splash, soaking the ground around it. 

He goes to the edge, thinking maybe something, someone has fallen in. If he can _help_ someone… 

“Hello?” he croaks loudly, looking for any sign of disturbance across the inky black surface. The water sways, to and fro across the mossy brick, but there’s nothing struggling beneath the surface. 

He claws at his eyes, exhausted. The blood has long since caked to his palms, he can feel it stiff against his nose and his neck when he moves. _Clean up_ , she urges again and his eyes swamp out. The water line is so high, he can reach right in, so he moves to do so. But then it shifts, something darker moves below, the surface tension doming up and he falls back to make some distance. As he kicks away, the bubble pops and drains down around the figure of a… woman. Well, kind of. 

From her temples arch two scaled horns. Her dark hair hangs wetly to her naked features, not quite obscuring her form and patchwork scaly skin. The most unusual part about her though, is the ragged fish tail that kicks out behind, squishing up against the well stones uncomfortably behind, using it as a counter weight as she pulls herself up onto the stone edge. 

He’s read up on merfolk, of course, and she’s checking all the boxes. Countless tales of fishy creatures, known for luring mortals to their deaths with sweet songs or lusty promises. _Why is she here, though_ , _in this landlocked place? In this well, hundreds of miles from the nearest body of real water? Are there such things as aquifer merms? How could that be possible, evolutionarily? How similar/different would they be from the oceanic ones? Are there swamp merms too, then?_

He’d be comforted by the familiar burst of curiosity, if she wasn’t about to open her very dangerous mouth. 

He clasps his hands over his ears in an attempt to block out the sound. 

The dry look she bores him with instead is at odds with her dripping cheeks. She flicks some water at him, sprinkling him cooly on the forehead. When he doesn’t remove his hands, she harrumphs dramatically and then speaks anyway. 

“I’m not going to charm you. Besiiides,” she gestures to her pointed ears, “that wouldn’t help you, anyway. You’re just being rude at this point.” 

He considers her words, heard distinctly even if muffled, and doesn’t feel any different. He drops his hands. “Uh. Sorry.” 

She arches an eyebrow at him and plops her chin in her hand. “I’ll let it slide if you tell me what happened to you. You’re like, covered in blood and stuff.” 

“Ah. Yeah. I am.” 

“Is it your blood?” She prompts. 

“N-no. It’s not.” 

“Oh cool! You fought someone then?” His hands quiver despite himself and he’s forced to look at the mess. 

She catches on when he doesn’t answer. “Worse, then? Did… did you kill someone? You don’t really look the type.” 

“I had to,” he croaks back, voice foreign and miles away. “My parents... they were going to kill my parents.” 

“It was self defense,” she says with an optimistic smile. “You shouldn’t beat yourself up so much.” 

He can’t stop the sob from tearing out of his chest, and with it, the truth slips. “I killed my best friends.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to follow this through and see how Caleb lives in the world he's been dreaming of, and see how that butterfly effect ripples out to the other characters and major story events. I don't know where I am going with it so far, but I liked the idea that popped up while I was drawing the prompt. I hope you do too! Let me know what you think.
> 
> Art accompaniment:
> 
> https://daciafu.tumblr.com/post/186204530008/widojest-week-2019-day-4-fairy-tale-theres


End file.
